News Briefs

JoWooD Opens Japanese Office JoWooD Productions Software AG has announced it is opening an office in Tokyo, Japan. The office will be responsible for marketing and sales of JoWooD title in Japan and South Korea. Hardy Fujiwara, an experienced veteran of the Asian software entertainment industry, has been named as General Manager of the new office.

Artifact Partners with NCsoft Artifact Entertainment Corporation has entered into a strategic partnership with Korean company NCsoft to publish and operate the upcoming massively multiplayer game Horizons in the Asian market. NCsoft is known for their popular game Lineage, which has more than 2 million subscribers in Korea alone. The agreement also covers the release of Horizons in North America.

Steel Beast Patch A new patch is out for eSim Games' Steel Beasts. The patch, which is tagged as 1.15, fixes more than two dozen little problems with the game and adds more than a dozen new features, including passwords for mission editing and custom text messages for events. You can get the patch if you go here, smart guy. The game is a tank simulation that is slated to be distribued nationwide by Infogrames.

New Industry Veteran Voted to IGDA Board The International Game Developers Association (IGDA) announced today that two new members have been elected to their board of directors. Robert Huebner, technical director at Nihilistic Software, and Graeme Devine, designer and project manager at id Software, were named to the board. Board member Matt Toschlog, one of the guys who worked on Descent 3 at Outrage Entertainment, was elected as chairman of the board.

Echelon Ships to RetailBethesda Softworks has announced that the futuristic flight combat game Echelon has shipped to stores, and should be available as early as this weekend. A demo of the game is also now up on Bethesda's site, which you can get by going here, here, or here.

More AvP2 ScreensAvPNews.com has posted more new screens of the upcoming first-person shooter, Aliens vs. Predator 2. The site has about 20 new images from the game, so why don't you check them out. What else are you going to do? Watch more XFL games?

Anarchy Online Update The official Anarchy Online site reports that they are about to close the current beta test of the game and begin work on beta 4. We assume that will be the last beta rev of the game before its June 27 release date.

Lego My Tribes 2 In case you haven't kept up on this one, don't worry -- we're just as baffled as you. But anyway, there's actually a LEGO mod for Tribes 2. The mod modifies the game so that everything in it is made out of LEGOs. Dont' ask us why, just go download it here.

Contest for Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising Interplay is holding a contest for its upcoming game, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising. If you download the demo, you may win an ALIENWARE "Ultimate Gaming System," a signed copy of Hostile Waters, and/or a signed poster. The contest will start June 15, and you can find out more at the game's web site.